City of Heavenly Fire

Alec held a hand up. Rather surprisingly, Jace fell silent.

“I recognize that we’re all filled with the giddy joy of survival, thus explaining your current stupid behavior,” Alec said. “But first”—he raised a finger—“I think the three of us are entitled to an explanation. What happened? How did you lose control of the fire? Were you attacked?”

“It was a demon,” Jace said after a pause. “It took the form of a woman I—of someone I hurt, when Sebastian possessed me. It goaded me until I lost command over the heavenly fire. Clary helped me get it back under control.”

“And that’s it? You’re both okay?” Isabelle said, half-disbelieving. “I thought—when I saw what was going on—I thought it was Sebastian. That he’d come for us somehow. That you’d tried to burn him and that you’d burned yourself up . . .”

“That won’t happen.” Jace touched Izzy’s face gently. “I have the fire under control now. I know how to use it, and how not to use it. How to direct it.”

“How?” Alec said, amazed.

Jace hesitated. His eyes flicked toward Clary, and seemed to grow darker, as if a shutter had come down over them. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

“That’s it?” Simon said in disbelief. “Just trust you?”

“Don’t you?” Jace asked.

“I . . .” Simon looked at Isabelle, who glanced at her brother.

After a moment Alec nodded. “We trusted you enough to come here,” he said. “We’ll trust you to the end.”

“Although it would be really awesome if you told us the plan, you know, a little before it,” said Isabelle. “Before the end, I mean.”

Alec raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugged innocently.

“Just a little before,” she said. “I like to have some preparation.”

Her brother’s eyes met hers and then, a little hoarsely—as if he’d almost forgotten how to do it—he started to laugh.

To the Consul:

The Fair Folk are not your allies. They are your enemies. They hate the Nephilim and plan to betray them and bring them down. They have cooperated with Sebastian Morgenstern in attacking and destroying Institutes. Do not trust Meliorn or any other advisers from any Court. The Seelie Queen is your enemy. Do not try to respond to this message. I ride with the Wild Hunt now, and they will kill me if they think I have told you anything.

Mark Blackthorn

Jia Penhallow looked over her reading glasses at Emma and Julian, who stood nervously in front of the desk in the library of her house. A large picture window opened behind the Consul, and Emma could see the view of Alicante spread out: houses spilling down the hills, canals running toward the Accords Hall, Gard Hill rising against the sky.

Jia glanced down again at the paper they had brought her. It had been folded up with almost diabolical cleverness inside the acorn, and it had taken ages, and Ty’s skilled fingers, to get it extricated. “Did your brother write anything else besides this? A private message to you?”

“No,” Julian said, and there must have been something in the wounded tightness of his voice that made Jia believe him, because she didn’t pursue it.

“You realize what this means,” she said. “The Council will not want to believe it. They will say it’s a trick.”

“It’s Mark’s handwriting,” said Julian. “And the way he signed it—” He pointed to the mark at the bottom of the page: a clear print of thorns, made in what looked like red-brown ink. “He rolled his family ring in blood and used it to make that,” Julian said, his face flushed. “He showed me how to do it once. No one else would have the Blackthorn family ring, or know to do that with it.”

Jia looked from Julian’s clenched fists to Emma’s set face, and nodded. “Are you all right?” she said more gently. “Do you know what the Wild Hunt is?”

Ty had lectured them rather extensively on it, but Emma found that now, with the Consul’s compassionate dark gaze on her, she couldn’t find words. It was Julian who spoke. “Faeries that are huntsmen,” he said. “They ride across the sky. People think that if you follow them, they can lead you to the land of the dead, or to Faerie.”

“Gwyn ap Nudd leads them,” said Jia. “He has no allegiance; he is part of a wilder magic. He is called the Gatherer of the Dead. Though he is a faerie, he and his huntsmen are not involved with the Accords. They have no agreement with Shadowhunters and do not recognize our jurisdiction, and they will not abide by laws, any laws. Do you understand?”

They looked at her blankly. She sighed. “If Gwyn has taken your brother to be one of his Hunters, it might be impossible—”

“You’re saying you won’t be able to get him back,” Emma said, and saw something in Julian’s eyes shatter. The sight made her want to leap over the desk and clobber the Consul with her stack of neatly labeled files, each with a different name on it.